At the Crossroads: Finding Your Way to Calm Clear Decisions

Decisions don’t have to pull you apart…they CAN pull you together again!

Are you going through a time of transition?

Are you facing some big decisions that are hard to make?Are you troubled by past choices that you regret?

Decisions can be tough. And some decisions torment us. We make the decision one way, then we doubt and second-guess ourselves. We go around in circles. We try making lists of pros and cons but it doesn’t help.

Sometimes it seems that a decision is a battle between the head and the heart. Rationally, it seems it should be one way, but our heart pulls us the other way.

Actually, an important decision should not be made by either the head or the heart. (True!)

Our Next Class

This workshop is not currently scheduled. Please contact us if you are interested in being
informed when this workshop goes on the schedule.

Can’t make this time? You can register and participate by listening to recordings of the course each week at a time that works with your schedule. But you won’t be eligible for CE units.

At A Glance

Who

For anyone wanting help in making decisions that honor your whole self. Open to anyone who has some Focusing experience (as little as one session) and is appropriate for those with more experience.

What

Decisions can be times of great opportunity. In this five-week course, Ann will show you how to use your body’s felt sense to guide your decisions. Learn a process you can use any time you need it. > Full Course Description

Where

Live Online Course – join us from anywhere in the world!

How

We use Zoom, an online video conference platform, to connect you to other students and the teacher. It’s easy and fun to use. You can join us via your camera-equipped computer, tablet, or smart phone. Prefer not to be on video? You can call in by phone. Students receive access to a private webpage where materials can be found.

Why

By spending time in a Focusing way with the different parts around the decision, you can hear, acknowledge, and experience the positive feelings that each side is wanting you to feel. This process opens up a new flow forward.

Want a Free Taste?

Listen in to our free one-hour webinar from Tuesday, March 21st. Ann shared:

The secret to why some decisions are impossible to feel good about.

Find out what isn’t right and what is right about either side of the choice… and find your own inner sense of rightness.

How to find your inner sense of rightness about either side of the decision.

Watch to the right, or click the icon to the left to download the audio.

Watch our past mini-webinar here

Course Information

About the Course

If decisions are hard, that’s often because we have two or more parts of us pulling in different directions. It can be hard to find the clear way forward.

A time of decision is a time of opportunity. You’re pulled in at least two different directions – which is right? Or maybe there is a feeling that life isn’t changing enough, you are stagnating, stuck… and if only you could make a decision to change, life would be better.

The need to make a decision points to a profound moment in which two sides of the self need to be honored and heard in order to move forward from our wholeness.

What We’ll Be Doing

At the Crossroads: Finding Your Way to Calm Clear Decisions is a five-week course offered by Ann Weiser Cornell. Ann will take you through a series of embodied Focusing exercises, showing you how to find the deeper gifts of passion and wisdom inside every decision. You’ll learn a process you can use over and over again, each time a decision comes up. And you’ll receive a workbook containing every exercise, so you can do them every time you need to.

Rather than feeling pulled in different directions, you will discover how to hear and feel what each side is wanting for you. You will find out why it often doesn’t feel like there is any good solution — and what to do then!

You can even work with a past decision that remains painful because of regrets or doubts about whether you made the right choice.

By spending time in a Focusing way with the different parts around the decision, you can hear and acknowledge and feel the positive feelings that each side is wanting for you to be able to feel. This process opens up a new flow forward… satisfied people from past Decisions workshops agree!

What’s Included

Five 90-minute meetings for a total of 7.5 hours of class time.

Access to recordings of every class so you’ll be able to download them and listen to anything you want to hear again.

A private web page where you can access homework, recordings, and other important class information from any web browser.

Email and/or phone support in case you have questions or need extra help.

About the Teacher

Ann Weiser Cornell, author of Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change,The Power of Focusing, and The Radical Acceptance of Everything, has devoted her life to helping people learn Focusing easily. Ann learned Focusing from its originator, Eugene Gendlin, in 1972, and worked closely with him for years. Today Ann is internationally recognized as one of the leading innovators and theoreticians of Focusing. She has taught Focusing in twenty countries, and her Focusing books and manuals have been translated into eleven other languages.

One of the biggest decisions in my life was when I decided to move from Chicago to San Francisco in the summer of 1983. From a logical perspective, this choice really seemed like a bad idea. Chicago had so much for me – lots of friends, a Focusing community, my work – and most of all, Gene Gendlin lived there, so it was the center of the world for Focusing. Everything was going so well for me in Chicago.

At the beginning of the year my boyfriend told me he wanted to live in San Francisco. We discussed it… over, sideways, and backwards… and finally I said it was clear to me that I needed to be in Chicago.

He said, “OK… so we’ll have a long-distance relationship,” and scheduled the moving van for his things. I was fine with that. It was the “right choice.” I helped him pack, and I waved him goodbye.

Almost immediately after he was gone I began to have a distinct pain in the lower right back. It was so definitely present that I went to see a doctor… but the doctor could find nothing wrong. So I did Focusing with it… and the words came, “Staying in Chicago was the wrong choice.”

I did not want to hear that! Chicago had everything for me. The only thing waiting for me in San Francisco was a boyfriend. No friends, no work, no prospects. (What I was doing in Chicago would not carry across state lines.) I was 33 years old. I hated the idea of starting again, like a student, living in poor housing and doing low-paid work.

But the pain in my lower right back was still there… and every time I did Focusing with it, it showed me the same thing. Me in San Francisco felt good. Me in Chicago felt bad.

So I shifted the question. I asked my body: “What would make it possible for me to do this?”

The answer came: “Start a Focusing newsletter.”

Chicago was the center of the world for Focusing. If I had to leave, I wanted to take a part of the center of the world with me. Focusing was starting to be known worldwide but there was no newsletter, no way for the international community to connect.

I knew nothing about starting or running a newsletter. This was not only before the internet, it was even before personal computers. Nevertheless, I knew I could do it, absolutely, without question… and starting a newsletter would make it possible, even interesting to go to California. As soon as I made this decision, the pain in my back vanished.

So I, in turn, called up the moving van. I arrived in San Francisco just as my boyfriend found an apartment for the two of us… dark, small, and cheap! To start my newsletter I wrote to thirty-some Focusing people around the world, asking them to help me by contributing articles. (One of them was Barbara McGavin, my first contact with her.) The first issue was published in March 1984, produced by typewriter and rubber stamps.

Thirty years later… The Focusing Connection newsletter is no longer published. But it went for 29 years, connecting the world of Focusing and opening doors for me that I never imagined. Being in the San Francisco Bay Area also opened doors I could never have imagined. Looking back, that was a decision that could not have been more right.

I’m fascinated by the use of Focusing for decisions. Today I make Focusing-based decisions every day. And as in my story, I’ve learned that the key question isn’t always “What is the right thing to do?” Sometimes it’s “What would make this possible?” or “What’s in the way of feeling whole-hearted about this?”

I love sharing what I’ve learned about decisions.

What People Are Saying

"Growing up in a family where being ‘right’ was ‘god’, making a decision was, for me, fraught with anxiety. At The Crossroads is layered with baby steps that showed me how to discover what my body knows about the right decision for me. So now, I not only have a way out of the anxiety but a way into a truly enjoyable process. I recommend this course to anyone with a current pressing decision and to those who would like to learn an ongoing way of meeting daily decisions."

-Taj

"This was truly a magical and beautiful experience for me. Ann did a magnificent job presenting, with great clarity, wisdom, and compassion for all. The material was extremely focused, well thought out and touched all the right spots. To my great surprise, it opened many doors that I didn't even realize had been long shut and all kinds of new things kept happening. In fact, the basic decision I had to make was quite different from the one I was grappling with at the beginning. All in all, I recommend both this course and working with Ann wholeheartedly."

Brenda Shoshanna

Upcoming Courses and Registration

Register early to save money and ensure your spot! Tuition goes up three weeks prior to the start of class. To help us provide an excellent experience for everyone, registration closes one week before every class.

This workshop is not currently scheduled. Please contact us if you are interested in being
informed when this workshop goes on the schedule.

Additional Information

How Online Courses Work

We use Zoom, an online video conference platform, to connect you to other students and the teacher. Before the class starts you will receive a Zoom link to use each time the class meets. You can join us via your camera-equipped computer, tablet, or smart phone. Prefer not to be on video? You can turn off your camera. Don’t want to call via computer? You can call in by phone. Zoom is free and easy to use. You will be able to sign on in advance to make sure you can access it, but we’ve had very few problems with it. Students also receive access to a private webpage where course materials can be found.

Prerequisite

Some Focusing experience, at a minimum an individual session with an Inner Relationship Focusing Teacher. Any Inner Relationship Focusing course also meets this requirement.

Focusing Resources is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs. Focusing Resources maintains responsibility for this course and its content.

There is a $25 administrative fee for CE units. Course completion certificates are awarded at the end of the course upon completion of all requirements and the course evaluation. (If you don’t want CE units but would like a completion certificate, the $25 fee does still apply.)

Eligibility for CE units requires at least 80% live attendance. If you miss a class, it must be made up.

Cancellations, Changes & Refunds

Up to 5 days before the first day of class:
We will refund your course fee less a $35 cancellation fee. Avoid the
cancellation fee by applying the entire course payment towards a future class. Changing your registration to a later offering of the same course must also occur 5 days prior to the beginning of class.

Cancellations received 4 days or fewer before class begins: No refund. Changing your registration within this window results in a $75 fee.

When Something Doesn't Go As You'd Hoped...

We are always open to discussing experiences with our courses that didn’t work for you or didn’t go the way you expected. Depending on the circumstances, you may want to email your course instructor, the staff member in charge of your course, or Ann Weiser Cornell. Email addresses for all these people will be supplied on registration. We will work with you to find a way to meet your needs.

LEARN MORE

DISABILITY ACCESS

We welcome persons with disabilities who need accommodations in order to take our trainings to contact us to discuss your specific needs.

We will make every effort to make it possible for you to participate fully.

DISCLAIMER

This site does not provide medical or any other health care or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The site and its services are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment.

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All individuals, regardless of race, color, age, nationality, gender identity (including transgender and non-binary status), religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, political affiliation, or status as a parent will be treated with respect and dignity by Focusing Resources.